A History of Sanskrit Literature Part 14

The last three sections of Book III. of the Brahmana, as well as the first two books of the Aranyaka, originally belonged to the school of the Kathas, though they have not been preserved as part of the tradition of that school. The different origin of these parts is indicated by the absence of the change of y and v to iy and uv respectively, which otherwise prevails in the Taittiriya Brahmana and Aranyaka. In one of these Kathaka sections (Taitt. Br. iii. 11), by way of ill.u.s.trating the significance of the particular fire called nachiketa, the story is told of a boy, Nachiketas, who, on visiting the House of Death, was granted the fulfilment of three wishes by the G.o.d of the dead. On this story is based the Kathaka Upanishad.

Though the Maitrayani Samhita has no independent Brahmana, its fourth book, as consisting of explanations and supplements to the first three, is a kind of special Brahmana. Connected with this Samhita, and in the ma.n.u.scripts sometimes forming its second or its fifth book, is the Maitrayana (also called Maitrayaniya and Maitri) Upanishad.

The ritual explanation of the White Yajurveda is to be found in extraordinary fulness in the catapatha Brahmana., the "Brahmana of the Hundred Paths," so called because it consists of one hundred lectures (adhyaya). This work is, next to the Rigveda, the most important production in the whole range of Vedic literature. Its text has come down in two recensions, those of the Madhyamdina school, edited by Professor Weber, and of the Kanva school, which is in process of being edited by Professor Eggeling. The Madhyamdina recension consists of fourteen books, while the Kanva has seventeen. The first nine of the former, corresponding to the original eighteen books of the Vajasaneyi Samhita, doubtless form the oldest part. The fact that Book XII. is called madhyama, or "middle one," shows that the last five books (or possibly only X.-XIII.) were at one time regarded as a separate part of the Brahmana. Book X. treats of the mystery of the fire-altar (agnirahasya), XI. is a sort of recapitulation of the preceding ritual, while XII. and XIII. deal with various supplementary matters. The last book forms the Aranyaka, the six concluding chapters of which are the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

Books VI.-X. of the catapatha Brahmana occupy a peculiar position. Treating of the construction of the fire-altar, they recognise the teaching of candilya as their highest authority, Yajnavalkya not even being mentioned; while the peoples who are named, the Gandharas, Salvas, Kekayas, belong to the north-west. In the other books Yajnavalkya is the highest authority, while hardly any but Eastern peoples, or those of the middle of Hindustan, the Kuru-Panchalas, Kosalas, Videhas, Srinjayas, are named. That the original authorship of the five candilya books was different from that of the others is indicated by a number of linguistic differences, which the hand of a later editor failed to remove. Thus the use of the perfect as a narrative tense is unknown to the candilya books (as well as to XIII.).

The geographical data of the catapatha Brahmana point to the land of the Kuru-Panchalas being still the centre of Brahmanical culture. Janamejaya is here celebrated as a king of the Kurus, and the most renowned Brahmanical teacher of the age, Aruni, is expressly stated to have been a Panchala. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Brahmanical system had by this time spread to the countries to the east of Madhyadeca, to Kosala, with its capital, Ayodhya (Oudh), and Videha (Tirhut or Northern Behar), with its capital, Mithila. The court of King Janaka of Videha was thronged with Brahmans from the Kuru-Panchala country. The tournaments of argument which were here held form a prominent feature in the later books of the catapatha Brahmana. The hero of these is Yajnavalkya, who, himself a pupil of Aruni, is regarded as the chief spiritual authority in the Brahmana (excepting Books VI.-X.). Certain pa.s.sages of the Brahmana render it highly probable that Yajnavalkya was a native of Videha. The fact that its leading authority, who thus appears to have belonged to this Eastern country, is represented as vanquishing the most distinguished teachers of the West in argument, points to the redaction of the White Yajurveda having taken place in this eastern region.

The catapatha Brahmana contains reminiscences of the days when the country of Videha was not as yet Brahmanised. Thus Book I. relates a legend in which three stages in the eastward migration of the Aryans can be clearly distinguished. Mathava, the king of Videgha (the older form of Videha), whose family priest was Gotama Rahugana, was at one time on the Sarasvati. Agni Vaicvanara (here typical of Brahmanical culture) thence went burning along this earth towards the east, followed by Mathava and his priest, till he came to the river Sadanira (probably the modern Gandak, a tributary running into the Ganges near Patna), which flows from the northern mountain, and which he did not burn over. This river Brahmans did not cross in former times, thinking "it has not been burnt over by Agni Vaicvanara." At that time the land to the eastward was very uncultivated and marshy, but now many Brahmans are there, and it is highly cultivated, for the Brahmans have caused Agni to taste it through sacrifices. Mathava the Videgha then said to Agni, "Where am I to abide?" "To the east of this river be thy abode," he replied. Even now, the writer adds, this river forms the boundary between the Kosalas (Oudh) and the Videhas (Tirhut).

The Vajasaneyi school of the White Yajurveda evidently felt a sense of the superiority of their sacrificial lore, which grew up in these eastern countries. Blame is frequently expressed in the catapatha Brahmana of the Adhvaryu priests of the Charaka school. The latter is meant as a comprehensive term embracing the three older schools of the Black Yajurveda, the Kathas, the Kapishthalas, and the Maitrayaniyas.

As Buddhism first obtained a firm footing in Kosala and Videha, it is interesting to inquire in what relation the catapatha Brahmana stands to the beginnings of that doctrine. In this connection it is to be noted that the words Arhat, cramana, and Pratibuddha occur here for the first time, but as yet without the technical sense which they have in Buddhistic literature. Again, in the lists of teachers given in the Brahmana mention is made with special frequency of the Gautamas, a family name used by the cakyas of Kapilavastu, among whom Buddha was born. Certain allusions are also suggestive of the beginnings of the Sankhya doctrine; for mention is several times made of a teacher called Asuri, and according to tradition Asuri is the name of a leading authority for the Sankhya system. If we inquire as to how far the legends of our Brahmana contain the germs of the later epic tales, we find that there is indeed some slight connection. Janamejaya, the celebrated king of the Kurus in the Mahabharata, is mentioned here for the first time. The Pandus, however, who proved victorious in the epic war, are not to be met with in this any more than in the other Brahmanas; and Arjuna, the name of their chief, is still an appellation of Indra. But as the epic Arjuna is a son of Indra, his origin is doubtless to be traced to this epithet of Indra. Janaka, the famous king of Videha, is in all probability identical with the father of Sita, the heroine of the Ramayana.

Of two legends which furnished the cla.s.sical poet Kalidasa with the plots of two of his most famous dramas, one is told in detail, and the other is at least alluded to. The story of the love and separation of Pururavas and Urvaci, already dimly shadowed forth in a hymn of the Rigveda, is here related with much more fulness; while Bharata, son of Duhshanta and of the nymph cakuntala, also appears on the scene in this Brahmana.

A most interesting legend which reappears in the Mahabharata, that of the Deluge, is here told for the first time in Indian literature, though it seems to be alluded to in the Atharva-veda, while it is known even to the Avesta. This myth is generally regarded as derived from a Semitic source. It tells how Manu once came into possession of a small fish, which asked him to rear it, and promised to save him from the coming flood. Having built a ship in accordance with the fish's advice, he entered it when the deluge arose, and was finally guided to the Northern Mountain by the fish, to whose horn he had tied his ship. Manu subsequently became the progenitor of mankind through his daughter.

The catapatha Brahmana is thus a mine of important data and noteworthy narratives. Internal evidence shows it to belong to a late period of the Brahmana age. Its style, as compared with the earlier works of the same cla.s.s, displays some progress towards facility and clearness. Its treatment of the sacrificial ceremonial, which is essentially the same in the Brahmana portions of the Black Yajurveda, is throughout more lucid and systematic. On the theosophic side, too, we find the idea of the unity in the universe more fully developed than in any other Brahmana work, while its Upanishad is the finest product of Vedic philosophy.

To the Atharva-veda is attached the Gopatha Brahmana, though it has no particular connection with that Samhita. This Brahmana consists of two books, the first containing five chapters, the second six. Both parts are very late, for they were composed after the Vaitana Sutra and practically without any Atharvan tradition. The matter of the former half, while not corresponding or following the order of the sacrifice in any ritual text, is to a considerable extent original, the rest being borrowed from Books XI. and XII. of the catapatha Brahmana, besides a few pa.s.sages from the Aitareya. The main motive of this portion is the glorification of the Atharva-veda and of the fourth or brahman priest. The mention of the G.o.d civa points to its belonging to the post-Vedic rather than to the Brahmana period. Its presupposing the Atharva-veda in twenty books, and containing grammatical matters of a very advanced type, are other signs of lateness. The latter half bears more the stamp of a regular Brahmana, being a fairly connected account of the ritual in the sacrificial order of the Vaitana crauta Sutra; but it is for the most part a compilation. The ordinary historical relation of Brahmana and Sutra is here reversed, the second book of the Gopatha Brahmana being based on the Vaitana Sutra, which stands to it practically in the relation of a Samhita. About two-thirds of its matter have already been shown to be taken from older texts. The Aitareya and Kaus.h.i.taki Brahmanas have been chiefly exploited, and to a less extent the Maitrayani and Taittiriya Samhitas. A few pa.s.sages are derived from the catapatha, and even the Panchavimca Brahmana.

Though the Upanishads generally form a part of the Brahmanas, being a continuation of their speculative side (jnana-kanda), they really represent a new religion, which is in virtual opposition to the ritual or practical side (karma-kanda). Their aim is no longer the obtainment of earthly happiness and afterwards bliss in the abode of Yama by sacrificing correctly to the G.o.ds, but release from mundane existence by the absorption of the individual soul in the world-soul through correct knowledge. Here, therefore, the sacrificial ceremonial has become useless and speculative knowledge all-important.

The essential theme of the Upanishads is the nature of the world-soul. Their conception of it represents the final stage in the development from the world-man, Purusha, of the Rigveda to the world-soul, Atman; from the personal creator, Praj.a.pati, to the impersonal source of all being, Brahma. Atman in the Rigveda means no more than "breath"; wind, for instance, being spoken of as the atman of Varuna. In the Brahmanas it came to mean "soul" or "self." In one of their speculations the pranas or "vital airs,"

which are supposed to be based on the atman, are identified with the G.o.ds, and so an atman comes to be attributed to the universe. In one of the later books of the catapatha Brahmana (X. vi. 3) this atman, which has already arrived at a high degree of abstraction, is said to "pervade this universe." Brahma (neuter) in the Rigveda signified nothing more than "prayer" or "devotion." But even in the oldest Brahmanas it has come to have the sense of "universal holiness,"

as manifested in prayer, priest, and sacrifice. In the Upanishads it is the holy principle which animates nature. Having a long subsequent history, this word is a very epitome of the evolution of religious thought in India. These two conceptions, Atman and Brahma, are commonly treated as synonymous in the Upanishads. But, strictly speaking, Brahma, the older term, represents the cosmical principle which pervades the universe, Atman the psychical principle manifested in man; and the latter, as the known, is used to explain the former as the unknown. The Atman under the name of the Eternal (aksharam) is thus described in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (III. viii. 8, 11):--

"It is not large, and not minute; not short, not long; without blood, without fat; without shadow, without darkness; without wind, without ether; not adhesive, not tangible; without smell, without taste; without eyes, ears, voice, or mind; without heat, breath, or mouth; without personal or family name; unaging, undying, without fear, immortal, dustless, not uncovered or covered; with nothing before, nothing behind, nothing within. It consumes no one and is consumed by no one. It is the unseen seer, the unheard hearer, the unthought thinker, the unknown knower. There is no other seer, no other hearer, no other thinker, no other knower. That is the Eternal in which s.p.a.ce (akaca) is woven and which is interwoven with it."

Here, for the first time in the history of human thought, we find the Absolute grasped and proclaimed.

A poetical account of the nature of the Atman is given by the Kathaka Upanishad in the following stanzas:--

That whence the sun's...o...b..rises up, And that in which it sinks again: In it the G.o.ds are all contained, Beyond it none can ever pa.s.s (iv. 9).

Its form can never be to sight apparent, Not any one may with his eye behold it: By heart and mind and soul alone they grasp it, And those who know it thus become immortal (vi. 9).

Since not by speech and not by thought, Not by the eye can it be reached: How else may it be understood But only when one says "it is"? (vi. 12).

The place of the more personal Praj.a.pati is taken in the Upanishads by the Atman as a creative power. Thus the Brihadaranyaka (I. iv.) relates that in the beginning the Atman or the Brahma was this universe. It was afraid in its loneliness and felt no pleasure. Desiring a second being, it became man and woman, whence the human race was produced. It then proceeded to produce male and female animals in a similar way; finally creating water, fire, the G.o.ds, and so forth. The author then proceeds in a more exalted strain:--

"It (the Atman) is here all-pervading down to the tips of the nails. One does not see it any more than a razor hidden in its case or fire in its receptacle. For it does not appear as a whole. When it breathes, it is called breath; when it speaks, voice; when it hears, ear; when it thinks, mind. These are merely the names of its activities. He who worships the one or the other of these, has not (correct) knowledge.... One should worship it as the Self. For in it all these (breath, etc.) become one."

In one of the later Upanishads, the cvetacvatara (iv. 10), the notion, so prominent in the later Vedanta system, that the material world is an illusion (maya), is first met with. The world is here explained as an illusion produced by Brahma as a conjuror (mayin). This notion is, however, inherent even in the oldest Upanishads. It is virtually identical with the teaching of Plato that the things of experience are only the shadow of the real things, and with the teaching of Kant, that they are only phenomena of the thing in itself.

The great fundamental doctrine of the Upanishads is the ident.i.ty of the individual atman with the world Atman. It is most forcibly expressed in a frequently repeated sentence of the Chhandogya Upanishad (vi. 8-16): "This whole world consists of it: that is the Real, that is the Soul, that art thou, O cvetaketu." In that famous formula, "That art thou"

(tat tvam asi), all the teachings of the Upanishads are summed up. The Brihadaranyaka (I. iv. 6) expresses the same doctrine thus: "Whoever knows this, 'I am brahma' (aham brahma asmi), becomes the All. Even the G.o.ds are not able to prevent him from becoming it. For he becomes their Self (atman)."

This ident.i.ty was already recognised in the catapatha Brahmana (X. vi. 3): "Even as the smallest granule of millet, so is this golden Purusha in the heart.... That self of the spirit is my self: on pa.s.sing from hence I shall obtain that Self."

We find everywhere in these treatises a restless striving to grasp the true nature of the pantheistic Self, now through one metaphor, now through another. Thus (Brih. Up. II. iv.) the wise Yajnavalkya, about to renounce the world and retire to the forest, replies to the question of his wife, Maitreyi, with the words: "As a lump of salt thrown into the water would dissolve and could not be taken out again, while the water, wherever tasted, would be salt, so is this great being endless, unlimited, simply compacted of cognition. Arising out of these elements, it disappears again in them. After death there is no consciousness;" for, as he further explains, when the duality on which consciousness is based disappears, consciousness must necessarily cease.

In another pa.s.sage of the same Upanishad (II. i. 20) we read: "Just as the spider goes out of itself by means of its thread, as tiny sparks leap out of the fire, so from the Atman issue all vital airs, all worlds, all G.o.ds, all beings."

Here, again, is a stanza from the Mundaka (III. ii. 8):--

As rivers flow and disappear at last In ocean's waters, name and form renouncing, So, too, the sage, released from name and form, Is merged in the divine and highest spirit.

In a pa.s.sage of the Brihadaranyaka (III. vii.) Yajnavalkya describes the Atman as the "inner guide" (antaryamin): "Who is in all beings, different from all beings, who guides all beings within, that is thy Self, the inward guide, immortal."

The same Upanishad contains an interesting conversation, in which King Ajatacatru of Kaci (Benares) instructs the Brahman, Balaki Gargya, that Brahma is not the spirit (purusha) which is in sun, moon, wind, and other natural phenomena, or even in the (waking) soul (atman), but is either the dreaming soul, which is creative, a.s.suming any form at pleasure, or, in the highest stage, the soul in dreamless sleep, for here all phenomena have disappeared. This is the first and the last condition of Brahma, in which no world exists, all material existence being only the phantasms of the dreaming world-soul.

Of somewhat similar purport is a pa.s.sage of the Chhandogya (viii. 7-12), where Praj.a.pati is represented as teaching the nature of the Atman in three stages. The soul in the body as reflected in a mirror or water is first identified with Brahma, then the dreaming soul, and, lastly, the soul in dreamless sleep.

How generally accepted the pantheistic theory must have become by the time the disputations at the court of King Janaka took place, is indicated by the form in which questions are put. Thus two different sages in the Brihadaranyaka (iii. 4, 5) successively ask Yajnavalkya in the same words: "Explain to us the Brahma which is manifest and not hidden, the Atman that dwells in everything."

With the doctrine that true knowledge led to supreme bliss by the absorption of the individual soul in Brahma went hand in hand the theory of transmigration (samsara). That theory is developed in the oldest Upanishads; it must have been firmly established by the time Buddhism arose, for Buddha accepted it without question. Its earliest form is found in the catapatha Brahmana, where the notion of being born again after death and dying repeatedly is coupled with that of retribution. Thus it is here said that those who have correct knowledge and perform a certain sacrifice are born again after death for immortality, while those who have not such knowledge and do not perform this sacrifice are reborn again and again, becoming the prey of Death. The notion here expressed does not go beyond repeated births and deaths in the next world. It is transformed to the doctrine of transmigration in the Upanishads by supposing rebirth to take place in this world. In the Brihadaranyaka we further meet with the beginnings of the doctrine of karma, or "action," which regulates the new birth, and makes it depend on a man's own deeds. When the body returns to the elements, nothing of the individuality is here said to remain but the karma, according to which a man becomes good or bad. This is, perhaps, the germ of the Buddhistic doctrine, which, though denying the existence of soul altogether, allows karma to continue after death and to determine the next birth.

The most important and detailed account of the theory of transmigration which we possess from Vedic times is supplied by the Chhandogya Upanishad. The forest ascetic possessed of knowledge and faith, it is here said, after death enters the devayana, the "path of the G.o.ds,"

which leads to absorption in Brahma, while the householder who has performed sacrifice and good works goes by the pitriyana or "path of the Fathers" to the moon, where he remains till the consequences of his actions are exhausted. He then returns to earth, being first born again as a plant and afterwards as a man of one of the three highest castes. Here we have a double retribution, first in the next world, then by transmigration in this. The former is a survival of the old Vedic belief about the future life. The wicked are born again as outcasts (chandalas), dogs or swine.

The account of the Brihadaranyaka (VI. ii. 15-16) is similar. Those who have true knowledge and faith pa.s.s through the world of the G.o.ds and the sun to the world of Brahma, whence there is no return. Those who practise sacrifice and good works pa.s.s through the world of the Fathers to the moon, whence they return to earth, being born again as men. Others become birds, beasts, and reptiles.

The view of the Kaus.h.i.taki Upanishad (i. 2-3) is somewhat different. Here all who die go to the moon, whence some go by the "path of the Fathers" to Brahma, while others return to various forms of earthly existence, ranging from man to worm, according to the quality of their works and the degree of their knowledge.

The Kathaka, one of the most remarkable and beautiful of the Upanishads, treats the question of life after death in the form of a legend. Nachiketas, a young Brahman, visits the realm of Yama, who offers him the choice of three boons. For the third he chooses the answer to the question, whether man exists after death or no. Death replies: "Even the G.o.ds have doubted about this; it is a subtle point; choose another boon." After vain efforts to evade the question by offering Nachiketas earthly power and riches, Yama at last yields to his persistence and reveals the secret. Life and death, he explains, are only different phases of development. True knowledge, which consists in recognising the ident.i.ty of the individual soul with the world soul, raises its possessor beyond the reach of death:--

When every pa.s.sion vanishes That nestles in the human heart, Then man gains immortality, Then Brahma is obtained by him (vi. 14).

The story of the temptation of Nachiketas to choose the goods of this world in preference to the highest knowledge is probably the prototype of the legend of the temptation of Buddha by Mara or Death. Both by resisting the temptation obtain enlightenment.

It must not of course be supposed that the Upanishads, either as a whole or individually, offer a complete and consistent conception of the world logically developed. They are rather a mixture of half-poetical, half-philosophical fancies, of dialogues and disputations dealing tentatively with metaphysical questions. Their speculations were only later reduced to a system in the Vedanta philosophy. The earliest of them can hardly be dated later than about 600 B.C., since some important doctrines first met with in them are presupposed by Buddhism. They may be divided chronologically, on internal evidence, into four cla.s.ses. The oldest group, consisting, in chronological order, of the Brihadaranyaka, Chhandogya, Taittiriya, Aitareya, Kaus.h.i.taki, is written in prose which still suffers from the awkwardness of the Brahmana style. A transition is formed by the Kena, which is partly in verse and partly in prose, to a decidedly later cla.s.s, the Kathaka, Ica, cvetacvatara, Mundaka, Mahanarayana, which are metrical, and in which the Upanishad doctrine is no longer developing, but has become fixed. These are more attractive from the literary point of view. Even those of the older cla.s.s acquire a peculiar charm from their liveliness, enthusiasm, and freedom from pedantry, while their language often rises to the level of eloquence. The third cla.s.s, comprising the Pracna, Maitrayaniya, and Mandukya, reverts to the use of prose, which is, however, of a much less archaic type than that of the first cla.s.s, and approaches that of cla.s.sical Sanskrit writers. The fourth cla.s.s consists of the later Atharvan Upanishads, some of which are composed in prose, others in verse.

The Aitareya, one of the shortest of the Upanishads (extending to only about four octavo pages), consists of three chapters. The first represents the world as a creation of the Atman (also called Brahma), and man as its highest manifestation. It is based on the Purusha hymn of the Rigveda, but the primeval man is in the Upanishad described as having been produced by the Atman from the waters which it created. The Atman is here said to occupy three abodes in man, the senses, mind, and heart, to which respectively correspond the three conditions of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. The second chapter treats of the threefold birth of the Atman. The end of transmigration is salvation, which is represented as an immortal existence in heaven. The last chapter dealing with the nature of the Atman states that "consciousness (prajna) is Brahma."

The Kaus.h.i.taki Upanishad is a treatise of considerable length divided into four chapters. The first deals with the two paths traversed by souls after death in connection with transmigration; the second with Prana or life as a symbol of the Atman. The last two, while discussing the doctrine of Brahma, contain a disquisition about the dependence of the objects of sense on the organs of sense, and of the latter on unconscious life (prana) and conscious life (prajnatma). Those who aim at redeeming knowledge are therefore admonished not to seek after objects or subjective faculties, but only the subject of cognition and action, which is described with much power as the highest G.o.d, and at the same time as the Atman within us.